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Washington University in St. Louis
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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Jacques Lipchitz

Mother and Child

1949

On View in Florence Steinberg Weil Sculpture Garden

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Mother and Child, by the Lithuanian-born sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, depicts a tender scene of a mother suckling her baby. The work was inspired by the birth of Lipchitz’s daughter Lolya in 1948, an event that pulled the artist out of a mood of pessimism following World War II, during which he fled from France as a Jewish exile to the United States. Of his daughter’s birth the artist stated, “It was a fantastic experience at the age of fifty-nine finally to have my own child. The result in my sculpture was a series of extremely lyrical works on the theme of the mother and child.” At the beginning of his career in the 1910s Lipchitz participated in the Cubist movement, and much of his sculptural work at that time strove to adapt the spatial ambiguities of pictorial Cubism into a three-dimensional language. While Mother and Child represents the artist’s interest in spiritual and humanist themes that developed in the later stage of his career in the United States, one can also see the early influence of Cubism in how the mother’s eyes are positioned on different planes and the lower section of the head is hollowed out. [Cell phone tour, 2019]

  • Artist Jacques Lipchitz (American, b. Lithuania, 1891–1973)
  • Title Mother and Child
  • Date 1949
  • Medium Bronze
  • Dimensions unframed | 48 x 32 1/8 x 30 1/8 in.
  • Credit line Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil, 1964
  • Object number WU 4216
  • Currently on View Florence Steinberg Weil Sculpture Garden

Caught By Politics: Art of the 1930s and 1940s
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/19/2001 - 03/18/2001

Affinity of Form: African and Modern European Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/27/1999 - 10/24/1999

Jacques Lipchitz
Buchholz Gallery (New York, New York), 05/01/1951 - 05/26/1951

1964
Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil

Inscription LR: "J Lipchitz"

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

Related Content

go to Affinity of Form: African and Modern European Art page
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Exhibitions

Affinity of Form: African and Modern European Art

August 27, 1999–October 24, 1999
go to Caught By Politics: Art of the 1930s and 1940s page
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Exhibitions

Caught By Politics: Art of the 1930s and 1940s

January 19, 2001–March 18, 2001
go to Jacques Lipchitz page
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Exhibitions

Jacques Lipchitz

May 01, 1951–May 26, 1951

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